BR 

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! LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,' 




THE 

RESULTS 

OF THE 

Protestant Reformation. 

M ZLtttuvt 

DELIVERED IN ST. ANN'S CHURCH 

ON 

"SUNDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8, 1878, 

BY THE • y/ 

VERY REV. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G. 



Stenographically Reported for the Publishe 




NEW YOftK : 
ROBERT CODDINGrTON, 246 FOURTH AVENUE. 

1878. 



7h 



^4 



& 



4 



Copyright, 1878, 
Bv ROBERT CODDINGTON. 

1 



STENOGRA-PHICALT.Y REPORTEDLY MR. E.~N. ! ROBBIN'5. 



LECTURE. 



In the fourteenth chapter of the Epistle of St. 
Paul to the Corinthians and the thirty-third verse 
are these words : ' ' For God is not the God of dissen- 
sion, but of peace, as I also teach in all the churches 
of the saints." 

It is an axiom that he who wills the cause wills 
also the effect, and it is understood in all our intelli- 
gent actions that we are responsible for the direct 
and legitimate results of our actions. Mankind 
adopt this rule universally, and therefore against its 
truth there can be no objection. The object of this 
lecture this evening is, then, to bring into light the 
results of that Reformation of which I spoke to you 
on Sunday evening last, and by these results to 
judge the Reformation itself. According to the 
words of our Lord, " A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit, nor can an evil tree bring forth good 
fruit." In the last lecture we considered the na- 
ture of the Reformation itself, and the character of 
the principal Reformers. That Reformation was 



demonstrated to be not simply a Reformation but 
a destruction. In truth, it was the creation of a 
new religion, and a presentation to the world of a 
new Christianity ; and we found that, if we argued 
logically and were true to ourselves, we must ad- 
mit either that the ancient religion, known to the 
world for so many centuries, was false, and the Re- 
formation, with its doctrines, was true ; or that the 
Reformation was false and the ancient religion was 
true. Between these two points there can be no me- 
dium, and the proposition itself is self-evident to any 
reasoning mind. But these men who brought forth 
the Reformation, and who, therefore, were the pion- 
eers of a new religion, and the instruments, according 
to their own sayings, of God in this great and impor- 
tant work, not only brought no signs whereby they 
could authenticate their divine mission ; but, on the 
contrary, they themselves denied the necessity of 
such signs. They even went so far as to assail the 
possibility of miracles or of prophecy. It had been 
understood in ages before that God should authenti- 
cate His revelation by miracles, which are a proof of 
divine intervention ; and so had God in divers ways 
taught mankind, verifying the Jewish theocracy by 
most wonderful miracles, and bringing into the world 
His Incarnate Son and the INew Law by the display 
of the most wondrous powers of His hand. But the 



Reformers, possessing in themselves no power what- 
ever to w T ork miracles, made no pretence to confirm 
their mission as divine. On the contrary, they as- 
sailed miracles themselves and attacked the miracles 
of the Church, and even went so far as to argue 
against the possibility of a miracle being well and 
truly proved. It came to this, that they soon reject- 
ed every miracle save only those which were recorded 
in the pages of Holy Scripture. Among their followers 
at the present moment there are few who believe in 
miracles at all. Then in regard to prophecy, which 
has always been the gift of those who claimed to be 
teachers of God, the Reformers did not pretend to be 
prophets, or if they made predictions, their predic- 
tions certainly failed. I remember at this moment no 
prediction of the Reformers save one, whereby, over 
and over again, they foretold the destruction of An- 
tichrist, that is to say, of the Holy See. Luther 
himself more than once declared that he should see 
the end of the Roman Church, and that during his 
life the last of the popes was reigning. You know 
very well how true that prediction has been, which, 
though he uttered it first, has been re-echoed by 
his children many times since. We saw, also, in 
our former lecture that, while there was no pre- 
tence of miracles or of prophecy, there was also 
no pretence nor profession of extraordinary holiness 



of life. On the contrary, the Reformers were immor- 
al men, who could not by their lives be the personal 
guides of any one in the path of virtue, as we justly 
argued, using even the very words of Luther. Could 
God, who is a God of infinite holiness and purity, 
employ such guides as these to lead men in the paths 
of a new religion % 

To-night, however, we argue directly from the re- 
sults of their work, and not from the work itself, nor 
from the Reformers themselves. These results we 
shall endeavor to show, as briefly as we may in this 
short lecture, were destructive, in the first place, of 
morality ; in the second place, of society and the 
whole social order ; in the third place, of the Chris- 
tian Church ; and in the fourth place, of the Chris- 
tian creed and of faith itself. And surely, when we 
have demonstrated these results, which we will en- 
deavor to prove by the very confessions of the Re- 
formers and their followers, we shall have made 
good our thesis and have shown that such results 
cannot come from God, and that He could neither 
will the effect nor will the cause. Under the in- 
fluence of the Reformation everything that was 
sacred to man, dear to the family, dear to society, 
or to the Christian Church went down beneath the 
power of this religious movement. 



I. 

'In the first division of this lecture this evening I 
shall endeavor to prove to you that the results of 
the Reformation were destructive of morality ; and 
here I shall speak of the theory and of the practice 
of the Reformers. Theory is the cause of practice, 
and therefore it is evident that from a corrupt theory 
corrupt conduct will flow. In theory the Reform- 
ers denied the possibility, and, therefore, certainly 
the necessity, of good works. It was not possible for 
men, according to their doctrines, to perform any 
works which were really good or acceptable to God. 
They declared that man was so depraved by his fall 
that he had lost his free-will ; that he had lost the 
power to do anything except to look to God ; that 
even when the grace of Christ came back to him and 
God came to lead him, he was so fallen that corrup- 
tion hung over him for ever and tainted everything 
that he did. When, therefore, good works were not 
possible and not necessary, you will at once see that 
the theory leads to evil works, ^and inasmuch as, ac- 
cording to the faith of the Reformers, all works were 
evil, there could be no greater or more constant 
fountain of evil than this doctrine itself. All the 
works of man, according to their theory, before justi- 
fication were damnable sins ; and all the works of 



man after justification were so sinful in the sight of 
God that, if He were to judge them strictly, every 
one would be damned. Such a theory was constant- 
ly uttered and constantly held by all the leading 
Reformers. What, then, was that justification of 
which they spoke ? Was it anything real % ~No ; it 
was something entirely unreal. It was justification 
by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, 
and not by the communication of His justice. Man 
was held to be just when he was not just. Over and 
over again they asserted that man could not be just, 
and as he could not be just, then how could he be 
justified? Why, the righteousness of Christ, all- 
sufficient, was made to cover him like a cloak, and, 
imperfect and unholy, he was considered just, not 
for anything that God made him, not for regenera- 
tion, or transformation, or sanctification, but for the 
righteousness of Christ, who in Himself was infinite- 
ly holy. I do not know any more immoral theory 
than this. I do not know any theory which leads 
more directly to carelessness of life ; a theory which, 
after all, is the groundwork of the Reformation. 
Luther said over and over again that this justifica- 
tion by faith only is the practical test of a standing 
or a falling church, by which he meant that that 
church only was true or in union with God which 
held this theory of justification by imputation of the 



justice of Christ, and by faitli only. Then, in order 
to make justification possible, naturally came the 
Calvinistic theory in regard to predestination ; for 
how should men be justified ? how were men to be 
held acceptable to Almighty God? There was no 
reason in themselves why they should be so account- 
ed. They did not work good works ; they could not ; 
they had no free-will ; they were machines ; and 
therefore, in order that they might be justified, they 
must be justified by an arbitrary selection. So came 
the theory of predestination, not contingent at all 
upon man's exercise of his free-will or his good 
works, but antecedent and independent of all his 
conduct ; and so came that horrid theory of the pre- 
destination of a certain portion of mankind to ever- 
lasting damnation, and the predestination of a certain 
portion to everlasting salvation, without any regard 
to their merits or their works. It even went so far 
as to predestine infants to everlasting damnation. 
Some were justified by this arbitrary decree of God, 
and some were left behind in the depravity of their 
original sin. You heard, dear brethren, the state- 
ments of Luther and his followers in regard to free- 
will, which I read you on Sunday evening last. You 
remember that he declared that free-will was entirely 
lost ; that, to use the words of Zwingli, there was 
no free-will in man whatever in relation to the things 



10 

of God ; and that, therefore, as Luther says, " man 
is like a horse," and either God or the devil rides 
him. 

It matters not who rides him, he must obey ; he 
has no choice ; he must go according to the bridle 
and the spur. As God pushes him, then he does 
something not by free-will but by the power of God. 
And when the devil pushes him, then he does some- 
thing not through free-will but by the power of 
the devil who takes possession of him. When the 
devil takes possession of some man or leaves him, it 
is only by that arbitrary will by which God wills 
that a certain number shall be damned and a certain 
number shall be saved. Then the conclusion is sim- 
ply this : that those who are to be saved are to be 
saved without any regard to their good works, and 
that they will be saved ; that there is nothing in 
heaven or earth that can keep them from being 
saved. Why, then, should they undertake to do any- 
thing themselves ? It matters not to them ; they will 
be saved anyway, whatever they do. And as for 
those unfortunate ones who are left behind and are 
to be damned, how idle for them to kick against the 
arbitrary decree of God ! They must perish anyway, 
and as they must perish, they ought to say to them- 
selves, according to the language of the epicure : "Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." While 



11 

there were tliose of the Reformers who did not go all 
lengths in the belief of this absolute predestination, 
there were none who did not accept the doctrine of 
the extinction or paralyzation of free-will, and none 
who believed in good works, who admitted that good 
works were necessary for salvation. 

I leave you, dear brethren, to your own conclu- 
sions in regard to the moral effect of doctrines like 
these, doctrines which were new and unheard of, 
which were the parent, as you shall see, of every 
species of unbridled lewdness and immorality. Then 
the Reformers laughed and jeered at the idea of the 
works of supererogation, or the counsels of perfec- 
tion, at the vows by which monks and nuns conse- 
crated themselves to the service of God. They 
declared it to be an idle thing, fondly invented, that 
man or woman should separate himself or herself 
from the world and be consecrated to the service of 
the living God. And all following our Lord in the 
way of self-abnegation, in the way of self-denial, in 
the way of crucifixion of self and of the flesh with 
all its unholy desires, they completely and totally 
denied, and not only denied but even derided. 
There is not, rest assured, in what I say to you the 
slightest exaggeration ; for such was, and such is at 
this very moment, the doctrine of the Reformers and 
their followers. 



12 

I prefer to read to you from some of their authori- 
ties this statement of their doctrine, that yon may see 
that I have only candidly brought it ont in open 
light : 

THE FORMULA OF CONCORD (1576-1580). 

' ' We reject and condemn the following phrases, 
where it is taught : That good works are necessary to 
salvation ; that no one has ever been saved without 
good works ; that it is impossible to be saved with- 
out good works." 

The Westminster Confession, 1647, teaches " that 
the elect will certainly persevere to the end and be 
eternally saved, and that this perseverance depends 
not upon their free-will but upon the immutability 
of the decree of election." 

| The Westminster Catechism declares that " every 
one sins daily in thought, word, and deed," and that 
"every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse, both 
in this life and that which is to come." It also de- 
clares that all the works of the unregenerate are sin- 
ful, and this doctrine, with that of election, is con- 
tained in the articles of the Church of England. 
Thus, before justification, all we do has the nature 
of sin ; and, after justification, every one sins daily, 
and all his sins deserve eternal damnation. 

And the salvation of the elect does not depend at 



13 

all upon their conduct. So it is true, as Zwingli 
said, that it matters not if a justified person commits 
murder or adultery a thousand times a day, he will 
certainly be saved (Alzog, III. 329). 

So much for the Protestant Reformers in regard to 
good works and justification. So much for the mo- 
rality contained in their doctrine. But there is no 
doctrine held in simple theory ; it is the fountain of 
practice and of the life. What, then, was the prac- 
tice of the Reformers and their disciples ? How did 
their doctrine flow out into their lives % What was 
the result in their conduct, and that almost immedi- 
ately, of such doctrines as those which I have read to 
you % I hardly need take time to tell you that where 
the master fails the servant will fail ; that where 
those who are called the ministers of God give evil 
example and fall into vice, those to whom they 
preach will follow their pernicious example. When, 
therefore, we behold at the time of the Reformation 
that, almost without exception, every priest who 
joined the Reform movement, and who had consecrat- 
ed himself to God by vows of chastity, immediately 
married or did worse, what will you expect from 
this example? When nuns, in the modesty of their 
sex even, could not be kept from breaking their 
sacred vows the moment they espoused these doc- 
trines, what can you expect in the conduct of those 



14 

who never had taken upon themselves such obliga- 
tions 1 We saw in our former lecture that even po- 
lygamy was recommended and permitted ; that the 
Landgrave of Hesse, by the edict of the principal 
Reformers, was allowed to marry a second wife while 
another was living, and that one of the Reformers, in 
the presence of the others, performed the ceremony. 
We have seen that Luther himself declared that he 
could not find polygamy against the Scriptures, nor 
could he forbid a man, if he so wished, from taking 
more than one wife at once. The doctrine of the 
Anabaptists was concubinage, or polygamy, together 
with a communism in goods. And these fanatics 
were the genuine children of the Reformation. The 
doctrines of the Reformers in regard to marriage and 
divorce became very loose. Marriage, according to 
the law of God, is a sacred ordinance which can be 
broken only by God himself. "Whom God hath 
joined together let no man dare to put asunder." 
But the Protestant doctrines, wherever they have 
prevailed, in almost every state, give to the civil 
power the right to divorce ; and it became a common 
thing for men to divorce themselves and marry again, 
and for women to do likewise. Divorce is only the 
first step towards polygamy. Whoever diminishes 
the sacredness of marriage, or takes from the holi- 
ness of that tie, which lies at the foundation of the 



15 

family and of all our social institutions, is the enemy 
of God and of man. I wish to read you now the 
testimony of the Reformers themselves in regard to 
the immorality which followed almost directly upon 
the preaching of their doctrines : 

"On November 10, 1541, Luther writes to one of 
his friends that ' he had almost abandoned all hope 
for Germany, so universally had avarice, usury, 
tyranny, disunion, and the whole host of untruth, 
wickedness, and treachery, as well as disregard of 
the word of God and the most unheard-of ingrati- 
tude, taken possession of the nobility, the courts, 
the towns, and the villages.' In the March of the 
following year he writes in much the same strain, 
adding that ' his only hope is in the near approach 
of the last day ; the world has become so barbarous, 
so tired of the word of God, and entertains so tho- 
rough a disgust for it.' On the 23d of July he de- 
clares that ' those who w T ould be followers of the 
Gospel draw down God's wrath by their avarice, 
their rapine, their plunder of the churches ; while 
the people listen to instructions, prayers, and en- 
treaties, but continue, nevertheless, to heap sin 
upon sin.' On another occasion (October 25, 1542) 
he declares that 'he is tired of living in this hide- 
ous Sodom ' ; that ' all the good which he had 
hoped to effect has vanished away ; that there re- 



10 

mains nanglit but a deluge of sin and unholiness, 
and nothing is left for Mm but to pray for Ms dis- 
charge.' ' Alas ! ' he cried to the Prince of Anhalt, 
' we live in Babylon and Sodom. Everything is 
growing worse each day.' And even in the very 
last hours of his life, so bitterly did he feel the 
immorality and irreligiousness of the city which 
he had made the chosen seat and centre of his doc- 
trines, that he had actually made up his mind to 
leave it for ever. 

i - t Few of the Reformers dealt less in extremes 
than 'the mild Melancthon.' What, therefore, are 
we to think of the state of things which drew even 
from him the declaration that ' in these latter times 
the world has taken to itself a boundless license ; that 
very many are so unbridled as to tliroio off every 
bond of discipline, though at the same time they 
pretend that they have fait7i, that they invoke God 
with true fervor of heart, and that they are lively 
and elect members of the Church ; living, mean- 
while, in truly Cyclopean indifference and barbarism, 
and in slavish subjection to the devil, who drives 
them to adulteries, murders, and other atrocious 
crimes ' % This class, too, he tells us, are firmly wed- 
ded to their own opinions and entirely intolerant of 
remonstrance. ' Men receive with avidity the inflam- 
matory harangues which exaggerate liberty and give 



17 

loose rein to the passions ; as, for example, the cyni- 
cal rather than Christian principle which denies the 
necessity of good works. Posterity will stand 
amazed that a generation should have ever existed 
in which these ravings have been received with ap- 
plause.' 'Never in the days of our fathers,' he 
avows, ' had there existed such gluttony as exists now 
and is daily on the increase.' 'The morals of the 
people, all that they do, and all that they neglect to 
do, are becoming every day worse. Gluttony, de- 
bauchery, licentiousness, wantonness are gaining the 
upper hand more and more among the people, and, 
in one word, every one does just as he pleases.' 

"'Most of the preachers,' writes Bucer, 'imagine 
that if they inveigh stoutly against the anti- Chris- 
tians [papists], and chatter away on a few unim- 
portant, fruitless questions, and then assail their 
brethren also, they have discharged their duty admi- 
rably. Meanwhile, there is nowhere to be seen 
modesty, charity, zeal, or ardor for God's glory; 
and, in consequence of our conduct, God's holy 
name is everywhere subjected to horrible blasphe- 
mies.' 'Nobody,' writes Althamer, in the preface of 
his Catechism, 'cares to instruct his child, his ser- 
vant, his maid, or any of his dependents, in the 
word of God or His fear ; and thus our young gene- 
ration is the very worst that ever has existed. The 



18 

elders are worthless, and the young follow their 
example.' 

"'The children,' says. Ciilmann, 'are habituated 
to debauchery by their parents, and thus conies an 
endless train of diseases, seductions, tumults, mur- 
ders, robberies, and thefts, which, unhappily, ow- 
ing to the state of society, are committed with se- 
curity. And the worst of all is, that they are not 
ashamed to palliate their conduct by the examples 
of Noah, Lot, David, and others.' 

"To add further testimonies," says a writer in 
the Dublin Review, "would be but to weary and 
disgust the reader. We can say with truth that to 
cull even these few from this mass of painful and 
revolting records has been anything but an agree- 
able task ; and that the reader who will be con- 
tent to pursue the general inquiry further for him- 
self, to read through the evidence of Amsdorf, 
Spalatin, Bugenhagen, Gerbel, Major, Flacius Illy- 
ricus, Brentius, Schnepf, Wesshuss, Camerarius, and 
the numberless others whom the industry of Dr. 
Dollinger has accumulated, must make up his mind 
to encounter many shocking and disheartening de- 
tails, for which the popular representations of the 
social and religious conditions of the great era of 
the Reformation will have but ill prepared him. 

"It must not be supposed that the testimonies 



19 

which we have hitherto alleged, or the great mass 
of those collected by the above-mentioned author, 
describe the social condition but of a portion of 
Germany under the Reformation. There is not a 
single locality which has not its witness. Saxony, 
Hesse, Nassau, Thorn, Brandenburg, Strassburg, 
Nurnberg, Stralsund, Mecklenburg, Westphalia, 
Pomerania, Friesland, Denmark, Sweden ; and all, 
or almost all, are represented by natives, or, at 
least, residents, familiar with the true state of soci- 
ety, and, if not directly interested in concealing, 
certainly not liable to the suspicion of any dis- 
position to exaggerate, its shortcomings or its 
crimes. 

"Indeed, the connection between the progress of 
Lutheranism and this corruption of public morals, 
could not possibly be put more strikingly than in 
the words of John Belz, a minister of Allerstadt, 
in Thuringia (1566): 'If you would find a multi- 
tude of brutal, coarse, godless people, among whom 
every species of sin is every day in full career, 
go into a city where the Holy Gospel is taught, 
and where the best preachers are to be met, and 
there you will be sure to find them in abundance. 
To be pious and upright (for which God praises 
Job) is nowadays held, if not to be a sin, at least 
a doAvnriglit folly ; and from many pulpits it is 



20 

proclaimed that good works are not only unneces- 
sary but hurtful to the soul.' " * 

There are many other testimonies which time will 
not permit me to read. Any one who may be desi- 
rous of investigating these matters for himself may 
be referred to the work of Dr. Dollinger on the 
Reformation, and Dr. Dollinger is one, I suppose, 
particularly acceptable to Protestants at this time, 
since in his late days he has abjured the faith of the 
Church. We have, nevertheless, his testimony to 
the Reformation, and all the statements he has made 
stand unreproved and unanswered. 

Time only prevents me from multiplying these tes- 
timonies, and yet every one I have cited is taken 
from the admissions of the Reformers themselves. 
History tells us how, immediately upon the spread 
of the Reformation in Europe, there came an immo- 
rality and a lewdness such as the world had not 
known since pagan days. 

IT. 

My second proposition is that the results of the 
Reformation were destructive of society. The social 
order is from God ; He is the founder of the social 
fabric. In these days it is common to think that 

* Dublin Review, 1843. 



21 

men themselves are the sources of the power of gov- 
ernment, and the framers of the social order ; but 
there is no infidelity more dangerous to the peace 
of nations. The social order depends entirely upon 
God, who has given to it His authority, and, there- 
fore, any movement which should take away its 
sacredness is destructive of the best interests of man- 
kind. The Reformers attacked society directly by 
extinguishing the religious element, and t>y destroy- 
ing the Church as the arbiter of right and wrong to 
the nations. When the Church was removed there 
was no teacher to instruct mankind, no pacificator 
to stand between nation and nation, or between the 
governor and the governed. The relation of the 
ruler to the subject came also to be misunderstood, 
and the true nature cf government denied. Two 
extremes were immediately seen, and became the 
immediate consequences of this movement ; and one 
extreme is destructive of the other : such is the in- 
consistency of error. The one extreme, taught by 
many of the Reformers, held that kings ruled by 
divine power, that they were autocrats, and therefore 
could do as they willed, even in things spiritual as in 
things temporal. This opinion they held that they 
might gain the favor of the princes, that by them 
they might build up their cause. Again, when revo- 
lutions were kindled, and they could excite the 



22 

populace, and by that means spread their doctrines, 
they taught that revolution was right. No matter 
what might be the conduct of the governor, many 
held that the majority had the right to rebel and to 
destroy the legitimate relation between the ruler and 
his subjects. You may ask how it was possible for 
doctrines so inconsistent to be held by the same 
minds, but if you ever analyze error you will find 
that error is always full of contradiction. The true 
state, therefore, of society, which realizes that the 
governor when exercising his just powers is the repre- 
sentative of God ("By Me kings reign and princes 
decree justice"), was altogether ignored and denied. 
It was denied by the extreme which held to the 
divine and absolute right of kings ; it was denied 
by the other extreme, which held to the absolute 
right of revolution ; and, while one doctrine para- 
lyzed the other, the preaching of both these doc- 
trines led to continual confusion and to the demo- 
ralization of society. Revolutions were fomented 
for the very purpose of spreading the reformed doc- 
trines. Princes were flattered whenever they were 
the aids of the reform movement. Thus says a his- 
torian from whom we have already quoted : 

"With the help of the princes Luther and his 
followers had abolished the sacred privileges of 
the hierarchy. To the princes they surrendered, 



23 

sometimes peaceably and sometimes compelled 
by force, the supreme spiritual authority ; and 
having done so, they made them their masters 
and set up the institution of Ccesaropapacy. This 
secular supremacy in spiritual affairs was thence- 
forth unlimited in its claims and more arrogant in 
its assumptions than the Byzantine despotism of the 
Lower Empire. The princes became at once the de- 
fenders of the Reformed Church against its foes, and 
in some sort the conservators of unity against its 
own members, whose interminable dissensions and 
schisms were constantly threatening it with dissolu- 
tion. It is, however, somewhat amusing to learn 
that the Conventicle of Naumburg (1554), presided 
over by Melancthon, adduced the Scriptural texts, 
' Lift up your gates, O ye princes ' (Psalm xxiii. 
7) and ' They shall be thy nursing fathers ' (Isaias 
xlix. 23), as arguments going to prove the necessity 
of making the Church dependent upon princes. This 
is only another instance of the saying that anything 
may be proved by the Bible. 

"With, these precedents before him Stephani had 
no difficulty in demonstrating, of course by the au- 
thority of the Bible, the existence of that peculiar 
episcopal system which was taken for granted in the 
peace of Augsburg, and according to which the ju- 
risdiction of bishops was transferred to the sove- 



24 

reigns of the countries in which they severally re- 
sided. It was claimed that the ecclesiastical supre- 
macy, being essential to the maintenance of public 
peace, belonged of right to the civil ruler, and. that 
he, therefore, became by virtue of Ms office as sove- 
reign the head of the Church in the country over 
which he ruled." * 

The undue extension of the powers of sovereigns 
led to the opposite extreme, and the right of revolu- 
tion. Revolutions and wars were the consequence 
in every country where the reformed doctrines flour- 
ished. 

" Might makes right " became the recognized law. 
"Beza and Melancthon advocated the execution of 
heretics on general principles, and the latter agreed 
with Luther in authorizing the murder of tyrants. 
Civil war, an obliteration of the principles of patriot- 
ism, and the introduction of foreigners to settle do- 
mestic difficulties, were everywhere the consequence 
of the Reformation. Thus Englishmen were invited 
to France and Scotland, Frenchmen to Germany, 
Dutchmen to England, Englishmen to Holland, 
Russians to Poland, and Turks to Hungary." f 

" That the Reformation was brought about by po- 
litical power," says Jurieu, an inveterate enemy of 
the Catholic Church, "is incontestable. Thus in 

* Alzog, III. 303, 304. j Ibid. 301. 



25 

Geneva it was the Senate ; in other parts of Switzer- 
land, the Grand Council of each canton ; in Holland, 
the States-General ; in Denmark, Sweden, England, 
and Scotland, kings and parliaments that introduced 
it. JSTor was the supreme power of the state con- 
tent with guaranteeing full liberty to the partisans 
of the Reformation ; it also took from papists their 
churches and forbade them to exercise their religion 
in public." 

"In Silesia," says Adolphus Menzel, "the new 
Church was mainly established by the favor and 
protection of princes and magistrates. Nearly all 
the people were loyal to the ancient faith, and had 
not the most remote thought of making any change 
in their religion. The Polish peasants, like those of 
German descent, embraced the religion that had been 
introduced by the nobles. In Sweden, Gustavus 
Vasa professed the new teachings because he desired 
to bring to the support of his throne the wealth and 
power that had been taken from the clergy. In Eng- 
land the divorce of Jlenry YIII. was the occasion of 
the Reformation." 

Says Frederick the Great in his Memoirs : "If the 
causes which promoted the spread of the Reformation 
be reduced to their last analysis, they will be found 
to be as follows : In Germany it was interest ; in 
England, lust ; and in France a love of novelty." i 



26 

Dr. Alzog remarks : "Of all the princes who were 
so enthusiastic for the Reformation there was not a 
single one distinguished for honesty of purpose or 
purity of morals. We have only to compare the 
impure and bloodthirsty Henry VIII., the sensual 
Philip of Hesse, the unbelieving and frivolous Albert 
of Prussia, the despotic Christian II. of Denmark, 
and the equally despotic Gfustavus Vasa of Sweden, 
with contemporary Catholic princes like George, 
Duke of Saxony ; Joachim, Elector of Brandenburg ; 
the Emperors Maximilian, Charles V., Ferdinand L 
and Ferdinand II., the Dukes of Bavaria, Albert and 
Maximilian I., and we shall see how incomparably 
more noble, more pure, and more elevated were the 
lives of the latter than those of the former." * 

Thus the religious element was altogether obliter- 
ated from society, and society was divorced from 
God. This is the legitimate result of the Reforma- 
tion ; and wherever you have seen that movement 
flourish you have seen this result. And now the 
consequence of these doctrines has become almost 
universal, so that at this moment there is hardly a 
Christian country in existence — I mean a country 
which recognizes Christ as the Lord over all and the 
principles of the New Law, the religion which Christ 
introduced into the world, as the principles which 

* Alzog, III. 29G, 297. 



27 

should govern men and nations. The theory that 
religion has nothing to do with society ; that the 
Church must altogether be deprived of influence over 
the state ; that men in social matters are free to act 
even irrespectively of the divine law, is the conse- 
quence of this divorce which we see now all around 
us, and which has produced its baneful fruit. If so- 
ciety is nominally Christian, and if, owing to the 
teachings of the Catholic Church and the principles 
of morality imbibed in childhood by many w T ho are 
not Catholics, some of the grand truths of our reli- 
gion are still holding influence over men, it is because 
they hold them in spite of that religious movement 
which gave birth to the Protestant Reformation. 
When the family falls society falls with it. For so- 
ciety, when the Church is gone, there is no teacher 
of divine truth authorized by God. The family falls 
when the sacredness of marriage is not recognized, 
and divorce and concubinage are permitted. And 
now we have not only an attack all along the line of 
the social fabric against Christ and Christianity, but 
we have an attack against the existence of God. The 
infidels of our day have altogether forgotten Christ. 
He has gone by, and their attack is now against God 
and His being. "God," said an eminent statesman 
in Italy not long ago — " God is no longer a factor in 
society. We do not know in society and in cabinets 



28 

whether there be a God or not; and if there be a 
God, it is not of Him that we shall take notice in our 
movements." The infidels of onr day are seeking to 
extinguish the Divine Providence and to govern men 
by the principles of pure humanitarianism or materi- 
alism, thus denying not only Christ, who bought us 
with a price, but denying also God, who created us, 
and who by His almighty power holds us out of no- 
thing. Such principles, while they are the legiti- 
mate results of the teachings of the Reformers, are 
against the nature of God. They have destroyed the 
fair fabric of Christian society, and they threaten all 
that is dear to man ; they not only threaten Christ, 
but they threaten the throne of God Himself. 

III. 

The third division of my lecture leads me to speak 
of the results of the Protestant Reformation as de- 
structive of the Christian Church. The stand taken 
by the Reformers was that the Church had erred in 
faith. And if the Church had erred in faith, then 
there never had been a Church, or if there had been 
a Church, it had not been the Church of Christ. I 
would I could make this plain point evident to every 
one. Behold the contradictions in terms that are to 
be found in the assertion of the error of the Church 



of Christ ! The Church of Christ, if it be the Church 
of Christ, cannot err in matters of faith, for the mo- 
ment that it errs it is the Church of the devil. What 
can there be more plain than this ? That is not the 
Church of Christ which teaches error ; but if the 
Church of Christ can teach error, then, according to 
the assumption, it is the Church of Christ and it is 
not the Church of Christ at one and the same mo- 
ment. It is the Church of Christ because, according 
to the assumption of the moment, it is so called ; it is 
not the Church of Christ because it teaches false- 
hood, and cannot, therefore, be the agent of God in 
any sense. The very idea of a church having erred 
in faith destroys it root and branch, and leaves no- 
thing whatever behind it. Again, this theory is open 
to another contradiction. If the Church erred, then 
Christ broke His word, for He declared that it should 
not err, and He said to Peter, on whom He built His 
Church: "The gates of hell shall never prevail 
against my Church," and "I will guide it into all 
truth." Now, if the Church erred, the gates of hell 
did prevail against the Church, and Christ broke His 
word. But you are to have a new Church, and Christ 
is to be its author. But Christ has broken His 
word, according to the assumption of the Reformers, 
and therefore is not worthy of confidence. Then how 
can you trust Him again \ And yet you are to believe, 



30 

in one and the same mental act, that He broke His 
word and is not worthy of confidence, and. that He is 
worthy of confidence, and accept a new Christianity 
at His hands. I do not know how a logical mind 
can fail to see the utter inconsistency of such theories 
as these. But whatever may be said, it is evident 
that the idea of the error of the Church in matters of 
faith is suicidal to the Church itself. "The Church 
of God," says St. Paul, " is the pillar and ground of 
the truth." It holds up the truth to the nations, and 
on it the truth rests. Now break it down, and where 
is the pillar and ground of the truth ? So when you 
teach the error of the Church — as it was taught by 
all the Keformers (for how otherwise could they vin- 
dicate their own Reformation or their attempts to 
reform its doctrine) — you destroy the Church, and 
when it passes away from the minds of men you 
have obliterated the great bulwark of truth and 
piety. 

Such was the theory of the Reformers in regard to 
the Christian Church, and I need not dwell further 
upon this point, so evident and so universally admit- 
ted. In 'practice they withdrew from the communion 
of the Catholic Church to set up their own churches, 
and gave themselves the right to construct organiza- 
tions which they declared to be human, which they 
asserted were not divine, to which they gave no 



si 

power winch, belongs legitimately to a church, no 
power of teaching and no power of discipline, save 
that which came from the members. They allowed 
no power of teaching, for the churches they set up 
were confessedly fallible, and a fallible teacher is 
no teacher at all. They believed in no power of dis- 
cipline except that which came from the members, 
for their organizations were governed by the ma- 
jority or by a chosen council. Therefore, by their 
own admission, there was no authority from above, 
but all came from beneath, and the Church was a 
purely human invention. Then as regards the divine 
ministry, there was no ministry appointed by God. 
The power to appoint ministers in the congregations 
came from kings and princes, or communities could 
select ministers for themselves ; and this was the doc- 
trine, without exception, of every reformed country 
and every reformed church. Even in the Church of 
England, as we shall see in our lecture of Sunday 
evening next, the ministers so appointed were 
recognized to be validly constituted by the desig- 
nation of the princes or by the selection of the 
people. 

Luther himself, well instructed in the doctrines of 
the Holy Catholic Church, consecrated Amsdorf a 
bishop, though he himself was only a priest. ' ' We 
have," said he, "consecrated a bishop without 



32 

chrism — nay, more, without butter, or lard, or suet, 
or tar, or grease, or incense, or coals." 

Thus did he ridicule in his coarse and vulgar lan- 
guage the rites of Catholic ordination which had 
come down from the apostolic age. So the unity of 
the Church was broken, and the ministry of Christ 
ceased among them. 

Luther at first invested every layman with sacer- 
dotal character, and taught that all the people were 
priests to God, and this doctrine still exists among 
many of the Reformed churches. Then consistories, 
composed of laymen and ecclesiastics, were created 
to govern the churches they established. The Scrip- 
tural appellation of bishop was changed into that of 
superintendent. In the Church of England alone 
was the episcopacy preserved, and there — as we shall 
see on Sunday evening next — it was only the form, 
for the chain of apostolic descent was broken. Even 
in England, with the form of episcopacy preserved, 
there was no pretence that the ministry of the Re- 
formed churches on the Continent was not valid nor 
blessed by God. On the contrary, there was con- 
stant intercommunion between the ministers of the 
Church of England and the ministers of the Re- 
formed churches, and the Reformers were the fram- 
ers and makers of the doctrine and discipline of the 
Church of England. If I need detain you further to 



33 

prove that the Reformation has destroyed the Chris- 
tian Church ; if I need do more than bring forth the 
theory which destroyed it fundamentally, and the 
fact of the formation of churches which professedly 
were only human organizations, I might appeal to 
the divisions of Christendom around you on every 
side, and ask you if you can believe in your heart 
that such divisions were the fruit of the long-suffer- 
ing and patience of our Redeemer, or if you can be- 
lieve in your honest mind that our Lord ever in- 
tended to permit His divine Church, which He called 
His bride and spouse, and likened to the seamless 
robe that He wore, to be broken into fragments ? 

Lastly, I need not argue to prove that which all 
Protestants admit ; that in their view the Church of 
Christ is not necessary to the salvation of any one. 
It is their fundamental doctrine that the church, 
though it may be for devotion or for counsel and mu- 
tual encouragement, is not a necessity in the plans of 
God, and that, therefore, whatever the church may 
be, it has nothing necessarily to do with the work of 
our sanctincation. If the Church of Christ have noth- 
ing to do with the work of our sanctincation, surely 
it is destroyed and its office is obliterated from the 
minds of men. Those who are born and educated un- 
der such principles have no correct idea of a church, 
nor of its nature. They have not the slightest concep- 



u 

tion that it is a sacrament of unity between Christ 
and the soul ; they have not the slightest conception 
that in the church they are to understand and know, 
in its fulness and beauty, the manifold wisdom of 
God. 

" For them" [the Reformers], says an historian al- 
ready quoted, "a visible, infallible, and sanctifying 
Church, established by Gfod and anterior to the Holy 
Scriptures, had no longer any meaning. They re- 
jected her authority and denied even her existence as 
a visible organization. In her place they substituted 
an invisible church, whose members, scattered over 
the face of the earth, were united in fellowship by 
hidden and spiritual bonds." * 

IV. 

I come now to the fourth and last division of this 
evening' s lecture, and shall endeavor to show you in 
very few words that which is almost self-evident — 
that the principles of the Reformation were destruc- 
tive of the Christian creed and of faith. First we 
will consider the theory and secondly the fact. In 
theory private judgment destroys both the creed 
and the possibility of faith. I do not err when I say 
that private judgment is the cardinal principle of 

* Alzog, III. 298. 



35 

Protestantism. The right to judge for one's self in 
matters of faith, or the right of every individual to> 
interpret the Scripture, is the very point on which 
all Protestants unite ; and therefore my statement 
will not be denied by any one. But this principle of 
private judgment destroys entirely the possibility of 
a creed. There can be no creed where each indi- 
vidual is the maker of his own faith. There can be- 
no unity of faith where all matters of belief are re- 
ferred to the individual judgment. One man is as 
good as another in finding out his faith and in inter- 
pretation of Scripture, or tradition, or history ; and 
more than that, this private judgment is not simply 
his privilege but it is his duty. Can I, as one man r 
bind myself to the opinion of another man, when 
there is no divine authority and no divine witness I 
What right have I to place my eternal salvation upon 
the ipse dixit of another man % All are bound, even 
the ignorant and unlettered, to decide for them- 
selves, and thus you have as many creeds as there 
are individuals. Such, I honestly believe, is the ex- 
act state of things among those who have followed 
the principles of the Reformation. 

Then, private judgment destroys the possibility of 
faith ; for where there is no external authority there 
can be no exercise of faith, for, be it remembered, 
faith is the belief in that which God delivers to man. 



36 

Now, if God does not speak to me, I cannot exercise 
faith ; and, surely, I am not vain enough to say that 
my own judgment is to me a divine testimony. What 
I can prove on my own judgment is my opinion, and 
my opinion stands for what it is worth. But as for 
the voice of God, men must hear it from an external 
and an infallible authority before they can believe ; 
for to believe is not to entertain an opinion, nor to 
know some truth by induction or logic, nor to search 
it out by science ; but it is to believe it and receive it 
because God declares it to be so, and because, as the 
Sovereign Truth, He neither can deceive nor be de- 
ceived. On the private-judgment theory there is no 
possibility of an external testimony. If it be ob- 
jected in answer to this that the Bible is the religion 
of Protestantism, and that the Holy Scriptures stand 
outside as an external and an infallible authority, 
I answer, first of all, the Holy Scriptures, when they 
are submitted to the judgment of each individual, 
are not an authority which leads to unity of 
faith. I need only bring before you the testimony 
of facts to prove this, but reason alone asserts it. A 
page speaks not for itself. I am a living man ; if I 
speak to you, you hear my words, and I speak for 
myself. A page speaks not ; it is that which every 
one makes it to be ; it takes the color of each one's 
education or opinions. Beside all this (and here is 



37 

the great insignificance or invalidity of the whole 
theory of Protestants), they have no power to prove 
the Holy Scriptures to be the word of God. There 
is no external authority for them, and there must be 
such an authority to prove the divine character of 
the Holy Scriptures. You cannot in logic prove the 
Scriptures by themselves. Certainly you cannot 
prove the Holy Scriptures by the fact that to you or 
to this man or to that man they seem to be inspired, 
for that is a kind of esoteric and subjective interpre- 
tation from which you may depart if you choose, 
and by which you can bind no one but yourself, 
much less the conscience of your neighbor. There- 
fore, without an external and infallible authority to 
declare that the Bible is the word of God, that it 
is inspired by Him, you have no means whatever to 
prove the Holy Scriptures to be the word of God. 
And Protestants who believe in the Holy Scriptures 
— and I thank God that many of them do — believe in 
them either on the authority of the Catholic Church 
or on no authority at all ; . for since there is no body 
on the face of the earth that pretends to be infallible 
but the Catholic Church, without her there is no 
witness to the revelation or redemption of Christ. 

Now, as to the fact that the results of the Re- 
formation have been destructive of the unity of 
the Christian creed and of the possibility of faith, 



38 

I need only ask you to look with, honest eyes at 
the condition of Christendom since the Reforma- 
tion. Before that day there was one faith. I do 
not say that there were not heretics and schisma- 
tics ; but I say that in the compactness of one faith 
all who called themselves Christians united. Now, 
I challenge any man to find, beyond the pale of the 
Catholic Church, a semblance of unity even in mat- 
ters that might be called fundamental. And who 
has the right to declare which are fundamental and 
which are not fundamental articles % Surely on 
every side are the variations of Protestantism. 
They have contradicted themselves over and over 
again ; pulpit stands against pulpit, and individual 
against individual, and church against church, and 
even in the same church there is not unity of faith. 
I do not believe that there is a single Protestant 
church in the whole world where the members of 
one single congregation are united together in the 
unity of one certain faith. So, if facts are any- 
thing, they stand around us with their thousand 
tongues, and they proclaim the utter confusion 
which has resulted from the destruction of "the 
pillar and ground of the truth." Even the Bible, 
called "the religion of Protestants," has suffered 
at their hands ; it has been torn into pieces ; it 
has been misinterpreted, and some of its portions 



39 

have been declared uninspired. Some are received 
and some are not received, and at this day in 
many churches there are large portions acknow- 
ledged to belong', to the Sacred Record which are 
treated according to the spirit of the first father 
of the Reformation, Luther. He called the epis- 
tle of St. James an epistle of straw, and he ex- 
pressed the wish that it could be erased from the 
canon of Holy Writ. You will not wonder that 
upon every side there are those who deny the in- 
spiration of Holy Scripture, who deny that it is 
the word of God at all. Even Protestants moral 
in their lives and upright in their conduct, who 
profess after a certain fashion to believe in Christ, 
feel themselves free to deny the inspiration of the 
Scriptures. Yet it was once thought that private 
interpretation of the Scriptures was the fundamen- 
tal point in the whole Protestant movement ! Al- 
low me to read to you for one moment the testi- 
mony of the Reformers themselves. 

The wavering but often candid Melancthon wept 
bitterly over the dissensions of early Protestantism. 
"The Elbe,'' said he, "with all its waves could not 
furnish tears enough to weep over the miseries of 
the distracted Reformation." * 

' ' It is really painful to read the lamentations of 

* Epist. lib. ii. Ep. 202. 



40 

the Protestant writers of those days over the utter 
and inextricable confusion in which every doctrinal 
subject had been involved by the disputes and con- 
tentions of the rival religions. ' So great,' writes the 
learned Christopher Fischer, superintendent of Smal- 
kald, 'are the corruptions, falsifications, and scan- 
dalous contentions, which, like a fearful deluge, 
overspread the land, and afflict, disturb, mislead, 
and perplex poor, simple, common men not deeply 
read in Scripture, that one is completely bewildered 
as to what side is right and to which he should give 
his adhesion.' 

" Bartholomew Meyer, professor of theology at 
Marburg, declares that the 'last times,' .predicted 
by the Lord and His apostles, have arrived, and that 
( not only in morals, but also in the doctrine of the 
Church, there is such confusion that it may be 
doubted whether there is a believer on earth.' An 
equally unimpeachable witness of the same period 
admits that ' so great, on the part of most people, 
is the contempt of religion, the neglect of piety, and 
the trampling down of virtue, that they would seem 
not to be Christians, nothing but downright savage 
barbarians.' Flacius Illyricus declares that ' the 
falsification of the doctrine of penance and justi- 
fication had led to complete epicureanism.' " * 

* Dublin Review, 1848. 



41 

I could easily multiply testimony if there were 
time to do so, and yet I feel very certain that it is 
not necessary to an audience like this. Those who 
desire to do so can follow out the testimony of the 
Reformers themselves. Let them not read the falsi- 
fications of history which have been studiously circu- 
lated for many years, but let them go back to the 
fountain-head, to the histories of the time which treat 
of the early days of the Reformation, and study 
the writings of the Reformers themselves. 

For my conclusion to this brief lecture I have 
only two remarks to make, and I make them in all 
sincerity and in truth, as Grod is my witness, not 
with the desire of wounding the feelings, or opin- 
ions, or the prejudice of any one. God forbid that 
I should ever wish to do so. I make them simply 
because truth is truth, and because to speak the 
truth is the greatest charity to mankind and to 
the souls of our neighbors. My first remark is 
that the Protestant Reformation, and the whole sys- 
tem evolved by it, contains in itself the germs of 
infidelity ; that it leads to infidelity just as surely 
as premises lead to their conclusions, and that logi- 
cal minds who take up the principles of the Re- 
formation will of necessity become infidels. Such 
minds have to choose — as they must choose now, 
and as they have had to choose every day— be- 



42 

tween infidelity and the Catholic Church. There is 
no middle-ground on which to stand ; it is either 
rationalism or faith, and if it be faith, it is the 
Catholic Church. That religious movement which 
leads to the destruction of morality, to the de- 
struction of society, to the destruction of the Chris- 
tian Church, to the destruction of the faith and 
the unity of the Christian creed, is the source of 
infidelity so broad that there are no human tongues 
that can describe nor human minds that can mea- 
sure its limits. 

In the result of this Reformation we have come 
now to an infidelity so strong and so broad that 
there has been no day in all the history of the 
world when it has been so completely unmasked. 
The Catholic Church stands as in her first Pente- 
costal days, not confronting the line of dogmatic 
battle, but standing in face of the pagan, and de- 
claring the unity of God and the perfection of 
His incomprehensible nature. The Vatican Coun- 
cil, which speaks the word of Christ, so necessary 
to our own age and needs, begins again with the 
annunciation: "I believe in God Almighty, Maker 
of heaven and earth." 

My closing remark is this : that God is not the 
author of this confusion. t He is the author of 
peace and not dissension ; He cannot contradict 



43 

Himself, for He is unity unchangeable and truth 
everlasting, and therefore He is not the author 
of the dissensions of our day, nor of the variations 
which have flowed directly from the Protestant 
Reformation. They, therefore, who would know 
Him, who would learn what God is in all His 
beauty and His truth, must know Him in the face 
of His Incarnate Son ; they must know Him at 
the altars of His Church. There alone can they 
find Him, see His beauty as He is, and be rav- 
ished with the revelations of His exceeding love. 
They must lay aside that infidelity and rationalism 
which is the scourge of our day, and turn to Grod 
and be true to themselves and true to reason, for 
reason and faith go hand in hand. 



n 



THE 

RESULTS 



Protestant Reformation. 

a %tttuxt 

DELIVERED IN ST. ANN'S CHURCH 

ON 

SUNDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8, 1878, 



BY THE 



VEEY EEV. THOMAS S. PEESTON, V.G. 



Stenographically Reported for the Publisher, 



NEW YORK : 
ROBERT CODDINGTON, 246 FOURTH AVENUE. 

1878. 




The Vicar of Christ. Second Edition Now Ready. 
Enlarged with valuable additions, including the Letter of Dedica- 
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of Holy Memory, and the Reply of the Holy Father accepting and 
congratulating the Very Rev. Author on his work, and imparting to 
him the Apostolic Benediction. Illustrated with a fine likeness of 
the late illustrious Pontiff, taken from an original portrait, with a 
fac-simile of his Autograph (fine steel-plate engraving). 12mo, 502 
pages, . $2 00 

Lectures upon the Devotion to the Most Sacred 

Heart of Jesus. Second Edition, $1 00 

The Ark of the Covenant. Fifth Edition, . 00 

The Divine Sanctuary/ A Series of Meditations upon 
the Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. By the Very Rev. 
Father Preston, V.GK, $1 00 

A Beautiful Devotional Work, elegantly printed and bound. Very 
suitable for Christmas Presents. 



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